Hupa language

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Athabaskan language of California, US

title: "Hupa language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["hupa", "indigenous-languages-of-california", "pacific-coast-athabaskan-languages", "endangered-dené–yeniseian-languages"] description: "Athabaskan language of California, US" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hupa_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Athabaskan language of California, US ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	Hupa
nativename	Na꞉tinixwe Mixine꞉wheʼ
states	United States
region	California (Hoopa Valley)
ethnicity	2,000 Hupa (2007)
speakers	1
date	2015, Hupa
ref	e25
speakers2	2–3? (1994, Whilkut)
revived	L2 users: 30 (2007)
familycolor	Dené-Yeniseian
fam2	Na-Dené
fam3	Athabaskan–Eyak
fam4	Athabaskan
fam5	Pacific Coast Athabaskan
iso2	hup
iso3	hup
glotto	hupa1239
glottorefname	Hupa-Chilula
map	California-athabaskan.svg
mapcaption	Hupa and other Californian Athabaskan languages
dia1	Hupa
dia2	Tsnungwe
dia3	Chilula
dia4	Whilkut ()
script	Latin script
map2	Lang Status 20-CR.svg
mapcaption2
::

Hupa (native name: Na꞉tinixwe Mixine꞉wheʼ, ) is an Athabaskan language (of Na-Dené stock) spoken along the lower course of the Trinity River in Northwestern California by the Hoopa Valley Hupa (Na꞉tinixwe) and Tsnungwe/South Fork Hupa (Tse꞉ningxwe) and, before European contact, by the Chilula and Whilkut peoples, to the west.

Speakers

The 2000 US Census estimated the language to be spoken by 64 persons between the ages of 5 and 17, including 4 monolingual speakers. As of 2012, there were fewer than 10 individuals whose Hupa could be called fluent, at least one of whom (Verdena Parker) was a fully fluent bilingual. Perhaps another 50 individuals of all ages have restricted control of traditional Hupa phonology, grammar and lexicon. Beyond this, many tribal members share a small vocabulary of words and phrases of Hupa origin.

Phonology

The consonants of Hupa in the standard orthography are listed below (with IPA notation in slashes):

::data[format=table title="Hupa consonants{{sfn|Golla|1970|pp=25–34}}{{sfn|Golla|1996}}"] | Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | median || lateral | plain || labial. | plain || labial. | plain || labial. | Nasal | Plosive | plain | aspirated | ejective | Affricate | plain | aspirated | ejective | Fricative | Approximant | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ( ) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ( ) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ( ) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ( ) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ( ) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ::

::data[format=table title="Hupa vowel phonemes{{Sfn|Golla|1970|p=25}}"]

Front	Central	Back	Close-mid	Open
~

::

Vowels may be lengthened.

Golla 1996 presents a different vowel system: ::data[format=table]

Front	Central	Back	Near-close	Close-mid	Open-mid	Open


ɛ		ʌ

::

Vowels , ɛ and can be lengthened.

Orthography

The Hupa alphabet is as follows:

::data[format=table title="Hupa alphabet{{sfn|Golla|1996}}"]

Spelling	Phoneme
a	a꞉
a	aː
::

Morphology

Verb themes and classes

As with other Dene languages, the Hupa verb is based around a theme. Melissa Axelrod has defined a theme as "the underlying skeleton of the verb to which prefixes or strings of prefixes or suffixal elements are added in producing an utterance. The theme itself has a meaning and is the basic unit of the Athabaskan verbal lexicon." In addition to a verb stem, a typical theme consists of a classifier, one or more conjunct prefixes, and one or more disjunct prefixes.

According to Victor Golla (1970, 2001 and others), each Hupa theme falls into one of eight structural classes according to its potential for inflection, along the following three parameters: active vs. neuter, transitive vs. intransitive, and personal vs. impersonal.

Active themes are inflected for aspect-mode categories, while neuter themes are not.
Transitive themes are inflected for direct object, while intransitive themes are not.
Personal themes are inflected for subject, while impersonal themes are not.

Golla (2001) presents examples of themes from each of the eight structural classes. Orthography has been changed to conform to the current accepted tribal orthography:

Active themes:

Transitive :Personal: {{gcl|OBJ}}-ƚ-me꞉n :Impersonal:
Intransitive :Personal: tsʼi-(w)-la꞉n/lan :Impersonal: (s)-daw

Neuter themes:

Transitive :Personal: {{gcl|OBJ}}-si-ƚ-ʼa꞉n :Impersonal: {{gcl|OBJ}}-wi-l-chwe꞉n
Intransitive :Personal: di-n-chʼa꞉t :Impersonal: kʼi-qots

Verb template

As with other Dene languages, the Hupa verb is composed of a verb stem and a set of prefixes. The prefixes can be divided into a conjunct prefix set and disjunct prefix set. The disjunct prefixes occur on the outer left edge of the verb. The conjunct prefixes occur after the disjunct prefixes, closer to the verb stem. The two types of prefixes can be distinguished by their different phonological behavior. The prefix complex may be subdivided into 10 positions, modeled in the Athabaskanist literature as a template, as follows:

::data[format=table title="Hupa verb templateadapted from {{harvcoltxt|Campbell|2007}}"]

11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0
	thematic material	/aug-thematic	.		thematic material		-thematic	mode-	./.	classifier (voice/valency marker)	verb stem
::

Pronouns, pronominal inflection

Hupa verbs have pronominal (i.e., pronoun) prefixes that mark both subjects and objects. The prefixes can vary in certain modes, particularly the perfective mode (See e.g., Mode and Aspect for a discussion of modes in Navajo, a related Dene language). The prefixes vary according to person and number. The basic subject prefixes are listed in the table below:

:{| class="wikitable" frame=void style="vertical-align:top; text-align:center; white-space:nowrap;" ! rowspan="2" colspan="2" | ! colspan="2" | Subject Prefixes ! colspan="2" | Object Prefixes |- ! Singular !! Plural ! Singular !! Plural |- ! colspan="2" | 1st person | -wh- || -di- || -wh- || rowspan="2" | -noh- |- ! colspan="2" | 2nd person | ni- || -oh- || ni- |- ! rowspan="4" | 3rd person ! animate | colspan="2" | -chʼi- || colspan="2" | xo- |- ! obviative | colspan="2" | yi- || colspan="2" | -Ø- |- ! indefinite | colspan="2" | kʼi- || colspan="2" | -Ø- |- ! impersonal (areal-situational) | colspan="2" | -xo- || colspan="2" | -Ø- |- ! colspan="2" | Reflexive | colspan="2" | – || colspan="2" | ʼa꞉di- |- ! colspan="2" | Reciprocal | colspan="2" | – || colspan="2" | n- łi |}

The subject prefixes occur in two different positions. The first and second subject prefixes (-wh- (or allomorph -e꞉ ), -di-, -ni-, -oh-) occur in position 2, directly before the classifier (voice/valency) prefixes. The animate, obviative, indefinite and "areal-situational" subject prefixes (chʼi-, yi-, kʼi- and xo-) are known as "deictic subject pronouns" and occur in position 8.

The direct object prefixes occur in position 7.

The Hupa free personal subject pronouns are as follows:

::data[format=table]

singular	plural	1st person	2nd person	3rd person
whe꞉	nehe
ning	nohni
xong, min (low animacy)	xong
::

Golla (2001) notes that the 3rd person free pronouns are very rarely used, with demonstrative pronouns being used in their place.

Demonstrative pronouns

hay(i)
hay-de꞉
hay-de꞉d
hay-yo꞉w
hay-ye꞉w

References

Bibliography

{{cite conference | last = Campbell | first = Amy | title = Hupa ditransitives and the syntactic status of R | date = 2007-11-23 | url = http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/conference/07_DitransitiveConstructions/pdf/handouts/Handout_Campbell.pdf | conference = Conference on Ditransitive Constructions | location = Leipzig
{{cite book |last1=Dixon |first1=Roland Burrage |author-link=Roland Burrage Dixon |first2=Samuel Alfred |last2=Barrett |first3=Washington |last3=Matthews |first4=Bill |last4=Ray |title=The phonology of the Hupa language |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_XUfzAAAAMAAJ |access-date=24 August 2012 |year=1910 |publisher=The University Press}}
{{cite book | last = Goddard | first = Pliny Earle | author-link = Pliny Earle Goddard | title = Hupa Texts | date = March 1904 | url = https://archive.org/details/coyotehupa00goddrich | series= American Archaeology and Ethnology | volume = 1, no. 2 | location = Berkeley | publisher = University of California Press | lccn = 05016850
{{cite book | last = Goddard | first = Pliny Earle | title = The Morphology of the Hupa Language | date = June 1905 | location = Berkeley | publisher = University of California Press | url = https://archive.org/details/morphologyhupa00goddrich | series= American Archaeology and Ethnology | volume = 3 | lccn = 15008301
{{cite book | last = Goddard | first = Pliny Earle | title = The Phonology of the Hupa Language | year = 1907 | location = Berkeley | publisher = University of California Press | series= American Archaeology and Ethnology | volume = 5, no. 1 | url = https://archive.org/details/phonologyofhupal01goddrich-1 | lccn = 07015930
{{cite thesis | last = Golla | first = Victor Karl | title = Hupa Grammar | year = 1970 | publisher = University of California | location = Berkeley | url = http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~survey/documents/dissertations/golla-1970.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110629161050/http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~survey/documents/dissertations/golla-1970.pdf | archive-date = 2011-06-29 | type = PhD dissertation
{{cite book | last = Golla | first = Victor | title = Hupa Language Dictionary | edition = 2nd | year = 1996 | url = https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/9z903219t | format = PDF | access-date = May 6, 2010 | hdl = 2148/48 | hdl-access = free
{{cite book | last = Golla | first = Victor | title = California Indian Languages | year = 2011 | publisher = University of California Press | isbn = 978-0-520-26667-4
{{cite journal | last = Gordon | first = Matthew | title = Laryngeal Timing and Correspondence in Hupa | year = 2001 | journal = UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics | volume = 7 | url = http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/gordon/Hupa.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220301105416/http://gordon.faculty.linguistics.ucsb.edu/Hupa.pdf | archive-date = 2022-03-01
{{cite journal | last = Gordon | first = Matthew | title = The Phonetics and Phonology of Non-Modal Vowels: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective | doi = 10.3765/bls.v24i1.1246 | doi-access = free | pages = 93–105 | journal = Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society | volume = 24 | url = http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/gordon/Nonmodal.pdf
{{cite journal | last1 = Gordon | first1 = Matthew | last2 = Luna | first2 = Edmundo | title = An Intergenerational Study of Hupa Stress | journal = Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society | volume = 30 | url = http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/gordon/hupastress.pdf | doi = 10.3765/bls.v30i1.3426 | doi-access = free
{{cite web |last=Pycha |first=Anne |title=Morpheme Strength Relationships in Hupa, and Beyond |url=http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~pycha/Pycha_Athabaskan.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100708193425/http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~pycha/Pycha_Athabaskan.pdf |archive-date=2010-07-08
{{cite book | last1 = Sapir | first1 = Edward | author-link1 = Edward Sapir | last2 = Golla | first2 = Victor | editor-last1 = Golla | editor-first1 = Victor | editor-last2 = O'Neill | editor-first2 = Sean | year = 2001 | title = The Collected Works of Edward Sapir | volume = 14: Northwest California Linguistics | chapter = Hupa Texts, with Notes and Lexicon | pages = 19–1011 | publisher = Mouton de Gruyter | doi = 10.1515/9783110879803

References

Hinton, Leanne. (1996). "Flutes of fire: essays on California Indian languages". Heyday Books.
adapted from {{harvcoltxt. Campbell. 2007

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